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Deuteronomy 26

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1 `And it hath been, when thou comest in unto the land which Jehovah thy God is giving to thee -- an inheritance, and thou hast possessed it, and dwelt in it,

2 that thou hast taken of the first of all the fruits of the ground which thou dost bring in out of thy land which Jehovah thy God is giving to thee, and hast put [it] in a basket, and gone unto the place which Jehovah thy God doth choose to cause His name to tabernacle there.

3 `And thou hast come in unto the priest who is in those days, and hast said unto him, I have declared to-day to Jehovah thy God, that I have come in unto the land which Jehovah hath sworn to our fathers to give to us;

4 and the priest hath taken the basket out of thy hand, and placed it before the altar of Jehovah thy God.

5 `And thou hast answered and said before Jehovah thy God, A perishing Aramaean [is] my father! and he goeth down to Egypt, and sojourneth there with few men, and becometh there a nation, great, mighty, and numerous;

6 and the Egyptians do us evil, and afflict us, and put on us hard service;

7 and we cry unto Jehovah, God of our fathers, and Jehovah heareth our voice, and seeth our affliction, and our labour, and our oppression;

8 and Jehovah bringeth us out from Egypt, by a strong hand, and by a stretched-out arm, and by great fear, and by signs, and by wonders,

9 and he bringeth us in unto this place, and giveth to us this land -- a land flowing with milk and honey.

10 `And now, lo, I have brought in the first of the fruits of the ground which thou hast given to me, O Jehovah; -- and thou hast placed it before Jehovah thy God, and bowed thyself before Jehovah thy God,

11 and rejoiced in all the good which Jehovah thy God hath given to thee, and to thy house, thou, and the Levite, and the sojourner who [is] in thy midst.

12 `When thou dost complete to tithe all the tithe of thine increase in the third year, the year of the tithe, then thou hast given to the Levite, to the sojourner, to the fatherless, and to the widow, and they have eaten within thy gates, and been satisfied,

13 and thou hast said before Jehovah thy God, I have put away the separated thing out of the house, and also have given it to the Levite, and to the sojourner, and to the orphan, and to the widow, according to all Thy command which Thou hast commanded me; I have not passed over from Thy commands, nor have I forgotten.

14 I have not eaten in mine affliction of it, nor have I put away of it for uncleanness, nor have I given of it for the dead; I have hearkened to the voice of Jehovah my God; I have done according to all that Thou hast commanded me;

15 look from Thy holy habitation, from the heavens, and bless Thy people Israel, and the ground which Thou hast given to us, as Thou hast sworn to our fathers -- a land flowing [with] milk and honey.

16 `This day Jehovah thy God is commanding thee to do these statutes and judgments; and thou hast hearkened and done them with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,

17 Jehovah thou hast caused to promise to-day to become thy God, and to walk in His ways, and to keep His statutes, and His commands, and His judgments, and to hearken to His voice.

18 `And Jehovah hath caused thee to promise to-day to become His people, a peculiar treasure, as He hath spoken to thee, and to keep all His commands;

19 so as to make thee uppermost above all the nations whom He hath made for a praise, and for a name, and for beauty, and for thy being a holy people to Jehovah thy God, as He hath spoken.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 10040

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10040. Since the flesh of the young bull together with its skin and dung was burned with fire outside the camp, it becomes clear that the good of love was not meant by its 'flesh' but the evil of [self] love, as accords with the things stated above in 10035 regarding its 'flesh', and in 10038 just above regarding 'the camp'. But the reason why they were allowed to eat the flesh of the sacrifice, as becomes clear from places which come further on, was that in its worship that nation was interested in the outward performance but not in anything internal, see the places referred to in 9320(end), 9380. And an outward performance devoid of anything internal is not at all holy because then it is something done merely by the body and spoken by the mouth, and the heart and soul are not in it. Nevertheless the outward performance devoid of anything internal was called holy because it represented holy and internal things, these being everything that belongs to love and faith received from the Lord and offered back to Him. Since that nation was by nature such they were not permitted to eat blood and fat, because 'blood' meant Divine Truth which composes faith, while 'fat' meant Divine Good which constitutes love, both of which are received from the Lord, see above in 10033. But they were permitted to eat the flesh of a sacrifice because this flesh meant the human proprium or selfhood, 10035; and the proprium of that nation was such that they worshipped the outward forms as being holy but made nothing whatever of their inward substance. And that worship - apart from the representative aspect of it, which was holy - was idolatrous, see 4281, 4311. Furthermore that flesh, as a representative sign, had no other meaning, when its blood represented Divine Truth and its fat Divine Good, 10033; for then that flesh represented something which was devoid of life and soul, as the outward devoid of the inward is, which is referred to as being dead and which is in keeping with the following words in Moses,

You shall not eat the blood, because the blood is the soul; and you shall not eat the soul with the flesh. Deuteronomy 12:23.

[2] The worship of the nation of the catholic religion, as it is called 1 , is almost the same; that is to say, its worship is outward, devoid of anything inward. The common people are prevented from knowing the inner truths of the Word, because they are forbidden to read it, for which reason also it has come about in the Lord's Divine Providence that in the Holy Supper the common people are given the bread or flesh, but not the wine or blood. And yet blood is that which gives life to flesh, even as wine gives it to bread. For just as the bread without the wine provides no nourishment to the body, neither therefore does the good of love, meant by the bread and the flesh, without the truth of faith, meant by the wine and the blood, provide any nourishment to the soul. In the Lord's Divine Providence it has also come about there that the priest should drink the wine, because by this is meant nourishing the soul by means of Divine Truth devoid of the good of love, which is something outwardly holy devoid of anything inwardly so. They have no knowledge that this has happened in the Lord's Divine Providence because they venerate outward things in an idolatrous manner and so have no idea about inward things. If it had been otherwise, then not unlike the Jews they would have profaned holy things. That drinking of the wine by the priest alone is also a sign that knowledge of Divine Truth resides with priests alone and not with the common people, except so far as they are willing to give them it. Regarding the Holy Supper, that the bread and flesh in it are the Divine Good of the Lord's Divine Love towards the human race, and people's love offered back to the Lord, and that the blood and wine are the Divine Truth emanating from the Lord's Divine Good, and so the truth of faith received from the Lord and offered back to Him, see 3464, 3813, 4211, 4217, 4735, 4976, 6135, 6377, 6789, 7850, 9127.

As regards when it was that the flesh of sacrifices should be taken outside the camp to be burned with fire, see Leviticus 4:11-12, 21; and when it was, and by whom, that it should be eaten, Leviticus 6:26-30; 7:6, 15-19; 19:5-6; Deuteronomy 12:7, 17-18, 27; 27:6-7.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. i.e. Roman Catholicism is seen to be a single nation whose secular as well as spiritual head is the Pope.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.